Bernie Sanders Wins Nevada Caucus; MSNBC, #NeverTrump Hardest Hit

Posted on | February 23, 2020 | 1 Comment

First of all, the Nevada caucus still had only half their precincts reporting as of 8 o’clock Sunday morning, so it’s another Iowa-style clusterfark. The party that can’t even count caucus votes wants to run your healthcare. The numbers with 60% reporting:

Bernie Sanders ………… 46.0%
Joe Biden ……………….. 19.6%
Pete Buttigieg ………….. 15.3%
Elizabeth Warren ……… 10.1%
Amy Klobuchar …………. 4.8%
Tom Steyer ………………. 4.1%

This is a decisive victory for Sanders, who more than doubled Biden’s total, and a major setback for Warren and Klobuchar, both of whom needed to show some kind of momentum to keep their campaigns viable. While it is possible that Biden could still bounce back with a win next Saturday in the South Carolina primary, even the most enthusiastic supporters of Warren and Klobuchar must see they now have no path to the nomination. Their money is running out, whereas Buttigieg (who at least got a narrow win in Iowa) could continue if he does well on Super Tuesday. Unless two or three of the non-Sanders candidates drops out before Super Tuesday, however, there will still be multiple candidates splitting the “Anybody But Bernie” vote with billionaire Mike Bloomberg, and that means Sanders could emerge with an insurmountable delegate lead after March 3. And this means . . . panic time!

“I’m reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940 and the General Renault calls up Churchill and says ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘how can it be? You got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said ‘It’s over.’ So I had that suppressed feeling. I can’t be as wild as Carville but he is damn smart and I think he’s damn right on this one.”
Responding to James Carville, “‘You’re describing what sounds a lot like political suicide,’ said ‘Deadline: White House’ host Nicolle Wallace. ‘I think we need a psychologist to understand that.’”

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) The Daily Caller provides even more highlights of the MSNBC meltdown:

Matthews also wondered on air if it would be better for moderate Democrats if Sanders didn’t win in the general election.
“I’m wondering whether the Democratic moderates want Bernie Sanders to be president. That’s maybe too exciting a question to raise. They don’t like Trump at all. Do they want Bernie Sanders to take over the Democratic Party in perpetuity?” he said.
“I mean, he takes it over, he sets the direction of the future of the party — maybe they’d rather wait four years and put in a Democrat that they like.”
In another viral clip, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace compared President Donald Trump and Sanders, accused them of using “dark arts” on the media, and called supporters a “squeaky, angry minority.”

Why are the MSNBC talking heads so despondent? Because they are convinced that if Democrats nominate Sanders, they’ll alienate middle-class moderate voters and thereby guarantee Trump’s re-election. I wish I believed this as much as they do, but can we trust the conventional wisdom dispensed by cable-news “experts”? These are the same people who thought Trump could never win the GOP nomination, and then believed Hillary Clinton could easily defeat Trump, so when they start predicting future political events, my hunch is they’re wrong again.

Glenn Reynolds seems to share my concern: “You can assume that Trump would crush Bernie, and you’re probably right. But any major-party nominee, however lame, has a nonzero chance of becoming President, and that’s bad when we’re talking about a commie.”

As much as I want to believe Trump would score a slam-dunk victory over Sanders in November, I’m disturbed by the fact that MSNBC talking-heads have the same opinion. Maybe I’m just being a worry-wart about this, though. In an all-out battle between a socialist Democrat and a capitalist Republican, Trump wins — if the American people are still the American people. If Bernie were to win, we might as well call ourselves “Southern Canada.” Meanwhile, Bill Kristol and the cruise-ship contingent of #NeverTrump ex-Republicans have reached a fatal reckoning; having committed to 100% opposition to Trump, they must now find a way to make the “principled conservative” argument for Bernie Sanders. They didn’t have much credibility left to lose, but once you sell your soul to Pierre Omidyar, you must pay that debt in full.

Don't worry. The Lincoln Project will stop 'em. ?

— Krian Brassenstein (@KBrassenstein) February 22, 2020

If you don’t get that joke, “The Lincoln Project” is an anti-Trump super PAC whose principals include George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson. There is so far zero evidence that they have influenced anyone’s opinion about anything. Least of all have they been able to convince Democrats to support the kind of “moderate” candidates they believe can beat Trump. So now, like the MSNBC pundits aghast at Bernie’s victory in Nevada, the #NeverTrump crowd is in a panic at the prospect of another four years in the wilderness. They are a spectacle of frustrated impotence. And let’s hope their fears are fully realized.

“65% of registered voters nationwide think @realdonaldtrump will definitely or probably be reelected”

CBS News poll: Most voters expect Trump will be reelected – CBS News https://t.co/rQCI4JPWCz

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) February 23, 2020

Category: Democrats, MSNBC, Nevada

A Failed State: California Admits It Can’t Teach Black Children How to Read

Posted on | February 22, 2020 | Comments Off on A Failed State: California Admits It Can’t Teach Black Children How to Read

An admission that will cost California taxpayers $50 million:

The state of California [on Thursday] agreed to settle a years-long, high-profile lawsuit that accused the state of depriving low-income students of color of their constitutional right to a basic education — by failing to teach them reading skills.
Under an agreement reached with plaintiffs in the complaint, Ella T. v. State of California, the state will provide $50 million specifically to improve literacy in the 75 California elementary schools with the highest concentration of third-graders scoring in the bottom tier of the state’s standardized reading exam.
The agreement, part of which needs the Legislature’s approval, also requires the state to advise public schools how to reduce disparities in discipline of students of color, according to an outline of the agreement provided by Public Counsel, the pro-bono firm representing the suit’s plaintiffs.
Public Counsel celebrated Judge Rupert Byrdsong’s approval of the settlement, calling it “a historic first step forward towards affirming the (right to literacy) for all children in California.” . . .
The plaintiffs represented by Public Counsel and the law firm Morrison & Foerster included current and former students of three California elementary schools with some of the lowest reading proficiency marks in California: La Salle Avenue Elementary in Los Angeles Unified School District, Van Buren Elementary in Stockton Unified, and the Inglewood charter school Children of Promise Preparatory Academy. The suit sought to hold the state responsible for the students’ poor literacy, noting that 11 of the country’s 26 lowest-performing large school districts were based in California.
Ella T., a 7-year-old black student at La Salle Elementary when the complaint was introduced, did not receive the “intensive support” and interventions she needed by the time she left first grade reading below kindergarten level, according to the suit.
Several other students of color represented in the complaint also were several grade levels behind in reading literacy. One black student who attended La Salle, identified in the suit as 11-year-old Russell W., did a book report for his fifth-grade class on “Cat in the Hat,” a book meant for kindergarten readers.

To understand how bad it is, look at this graph (click to enlarge):

In California, 77% of Asian students and 66% of white students score “proficient” on reading tests, compared to 41% of Latino students and 33% of black students. In other words, white students are twice as likely as black students to read at a “proficient” level, and two-thirds of black students are reading below grade level. The lawsuit claims that the state of California is to blame for this education disparity, and I’m perfectly willing to accept that claim, because f**k California, a state wholly controlled by the Democratic Party. If, however, you reject such a simplistic explanation, liberals will help confuse the issue:

Over the last decade . . . California has initiated sweeping reforms in an attempt to channel more resources to high-needs students and to better level the educational playing field. These and other efforts have, to some extent, improved academic outcomes — but black, Latino and poor students still lag dramatically behind Asian American, white and wealthier students. . . .

(Note the assumption that “resources,” and the distribution thereof, can lead to “improved academic outcomes.”)

UCLA researchers recently found that California was the most segregated state for Latinos, “where 58% attend intensely segregated schools,” exacerbating inequities in educational opportunities. More than half of the state’s black students are concentrated in just 25 of the state’s 1,000 school districts. Of the students enrolled in K-12 public schools in California, less than 30% are white, the researchers found. . . .

(Wait a minute — California is “the most segregated state for Latinos”? Has anyone told Nancy Pelosi about this? And what’s up with the shortage of white children in California? Maybe Democrats can start a program to import white kids to California from out of state.)

A recent study by Stanford researchers found student achievement gaps are mainly driven by school poverty — not a school’s racial composition. “Racial segregation appears to be harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are, on average, less effective than lower-poverty schools,” the study found. . . .

(Keep in mind, when they say “segregation,” they’re not talking about some kind of Jim Crow policy, but merely the fact that “minority students” go to schools in their own communities with children from similar backgrounds. And notice the assumption that the school is independently responsible for education outcomes, as opposed to the individual student being responsible. If your kid flunks math, just blame the “high-poverty” school.)

In 2018, researchers with the American Institute for Research looked at California’s spending the prior school year and calculated that, to educate all the state’s K-12 students to California’s learning standards, the state would have had to spend an extra $25.6 billion over the $66.7 billion it spent that year.

A simple solution — MORE MONEY!

Do you see now why California is circling the toilet bowl? Their entire way of thinking is limited by their liberal worldview, so that they can never understand any problem where the facts contradict their belief system. The “sweeping reforms” intended to “level the educational playing field” were premised on the idea that differences in test scores could be explained in terms of “resources,” so that all they needed to do was target more “resources” (i.e., taxpayer money) at schools with low test scores. Throw in a lot of social-justice talk about poverty and “segregation,” and you make it seem as if only a racist bigot could be skeptical of the efficacy of such “sweeping reforms.”

After years of this kind of “reform” effort, you’ve got fifth-graders doing book reports about The Cat in the Hat, and taxpayers will have to pay out an extra $50 million to settle a lawsuit, but did you notice where this money will go? To “the 75 California elementary schools with the highest concentration of third-graders scoring in the bottom tier of the state’s standardized reading exam.” Yes, the worst-performing schools in the state will get this money, so that the result is to reward failure, and does anyone think that’s actually going to solve the problem?

Liberalism is a mental disorder, and putting liberals in charge of public education guarantees that the madness will become an epidemic.

Oh, and for the record: As of the 2016-2017 school year, 54.2% of California public school students were Latino — an absolute majority — while 23.7% were white, 12.1% were Asian and 5.5% were black.

What do these numbers suggest about California’s future? Are the state’s educational problems likely to get better, or worse?

Category: California, Education

Police: Couple Terrorized Teen Boys Over Trump Flags, Posted Video to Snapchat

Posted on | February 22, 2020 | 1 Comment

Democrats engaging in political terrorism:

A northwestern Indiana couple allegedly used a car to force two teenage boys off a road, angered that the twin brothers were riding bicycles adorned with flags supporting President Donald Trump, before ripping one of the sibling’s flag from his bike, police said Friday.
Hobart police said Snapchat videos helped officers secure charges against Kyren Gregory Perry-Jones, 23, and Cailyn Marie Smith, 18, in connection with a July 22 incident.
Police Capt. James Gonzales said the Hobart couple are accused of driving in their car, running the 14-year-old boys off of the road, and making threats toward them.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the boys told officers that a vehicle with a man driving and woman passenger followed them before the male driver pulled up nearby and asked one of the boys “if they were Trump supporters” — to which the boy replied that they were.
The driver then swerved at the boys, forcing them onto roadside grass to avoid being struck, according to the affidavit. The driver followed the boys before exiting the car and tearing off the flag from one of the brother’s bikes, the affidavit states. . . .
Gonzales said the charges weren’t filed until Thursday because there was a delay in detectives getting information from Snapchat, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported.
In a video posted to Snapchat, allegedly by the couple of their encounter with the boy, shows “the driver turns the wheel sharply as if he saw the boys and wanted to hit them with the vehicle while yelling `ya’ll better get home,'” according to the affidavit. A male’s voice is then heard telling the female passenger “pull that flag down” in the video which shows the female trying to reach it through her window and her saying, “get closer.”
“The female is then heard saying `ya’ll scared, just like your president” and `America is not great'” followed by an expletive, according to the affidavit.
In a second Snapchat video, Perry-Jones allegedly says, “Don’t let me see you downtown” to one of the boys and threatens to beat him up.

These two Democrats posted video of their felonies to Snapchat, which isn’t very smart, but then again, they’re Democrats, right?

Category: Crime, Democrats, Indiana

CPAC Emergency Tip-Jar Rattle

Posted on | February 22, 2020 | Comments Off on CPAC Emergency Tip-Jar Rattle

So, I had been procrastinating about preparations for CPAC, an event that I’ve been covering every year since 2006. It starts Wednesday, and today I went online to see about booking a hotel room and HOLY FREAKING CRAP! The Residence Inn where I usually stay is sold out, and the hotels nearest the event are charging completely crazy prices — $400+ a night. I managed to find a hotel about two miles away for $225 a night, but with taxes that will total about $1,000 for four nights.

Maybe I can get The American Spectator to comp me part of that, but still my wife is going to hit the roof if I don’t come up with at least a few hundred bucks soon — and by “soon,” I mean, today.

Anyway, I know this is the second emergency tip-jar rattle of the month, but if the readers could chip in a little extra — $5, $10, $20 — today, that would do wonders in terms of keeping my wife happy, which is of course Job Number One. This year, I’ll be bringing my brother Kirby to CPAC for his photography skills, and we should get some nice images on the blog, plus John Hoge and I will be doing The Other Podcast from the site.

CPAC has announced Vice President Mike Pence among the speakers, and we don’t know yet if President Trump will also show up. At any rate, the fact that my usual hotel is sold-out suggests that this year’s CPAC will be pretty big, and once more I remind you that the Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Category: CPAC, Shoe Leather Fund

Creep Linked to Sleazy Democrat Katie Hill Hacked Rival Campaign’s Web Site

Posted on | February 22, 2020 | Comments Off on Creep Linked to Sleazy Democrat Katie Hill Hacked Rival Campaign’s Web Site

I love it when Democrats commit crimes against each other:

The FBI on Friday arrested a man married to a staffer for former Democratic representative Katie Hill for a hacking spree against one of Hill’s political opponents.
Arthur Dam, the husband of Hill’s campaign fundraiser and eventual district director Kelsey O’Hara, is charged with intentionally damaging and attempting to damage a protected computer for committing cyber attacks against Hill’s Democratic rival Bryan Caforio. Two of the attacks came at crucial points during their 25th Congressional District primary fight, the Intercept reported.
According to the complaint, Caforio’s website went down for a combined 21 hours during the 2018 campaign due to distributed denial of service attacks, a cyber attack that effectively shuts down a website from being used by interfering with its host or provider. Two of the hacks happened directly before a primary debate and a week before the primary election. The FBI connected Dam to the attack through “subscriber information, IP addresses, geolocation history, and open sources,” as well as through his wife.
The FBI traced the hacking to an anonymous Amazon Web Services account that was paid for by Dam’s credit card. Hill’s Federal Election Commission records list a $500 in-kind contribution from Dam on March 25, 2018, for “graphic design and website security consultation,” the Intercept reported.
The complaint stated the attacks cost Caforio upwards of $30,000 in expenditures and lost time to investigate and mitigate them. The hacks occurring at high-buzz times in the campaign exacerbated their harm.
Caforio said in a statement to the media that he was “shocked and saddened” that the arrested hacker was connected to Hill’s campaign, adding it should be “a reminder that Russia is not the only threat to our democracy.”

Let’s hope he gets as much prison time as Roger Stone. In case you’ve forgotten, Katie Hill is the naked bisexual Democrat who engaged in a “relationship” with a member of her congressional staff.

Category: Crime, Democrats

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | February 22, 2020 | Comments Off on Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

by Smitty

Held the lantern before her as the alley ended.
Comfortable night; last week’s storm had purged the alley.
Senses alert; autonomic nervous system deftly controlled, she knocked on the door.“Results,” a voice challenged.
“Not excuses,” she replied.
Blindfolded, gently led, eventually seated. She gave the guide the lantern.
“Report,” he demanded. The leader.
“Data in the lantern. Grim situation. The mainland is devastated.”
“As bad as the third Velvet Revolver album?”
“Worse.”
“Indeed, imposter: there were only two Velvet Revolver albums, and the real Sophia McNish would not have fallen prey to that misdirection.”
The fake-tooth detonator worked.
—
via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

You’re Not Paranoid Enough Yet

Posted on | February 21, 2020 | Comments Off on You’re Not Paranoid Enough Yet

The one thing a responsible blogger would never do is to spread baseless conspiracy theories in an effort to incite fear and suspicion among Democrats. Fortunately, I don’t have to do that, because the daily headlines suffice as paranoia fodder:

Mike Bloomberg is privately lobbying Democratic Party officials and donors allied with his moderate opponents to flip their allegiance to him — and block Bernie Sanders — in the event of a brokered national convention.
The effort, largely executed by Bloomberg’s senior state-level advisers in recent weeks, attempts to prime Bloomberg for a second-ballot contest at the Democratic National Convention in July by poaching supporters of Joe Biden and other moderate Democrats, according to two Democratic strategists familiar with the talks and unaffiliated with Bloomberg.
The outreach has involved meetings and telephone calls with supporters of Biden and Pete Buttigieg — as well as uncommitted DNC members — in Virginia, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and North Carolina, according to one of the strategists who participated in meetings and calls.
With Sanders’ emergence as the frontrunner in the presidential primary, Democrats in those states have recently raised the prospect that the democratic socialist could be a top-of-the-ticket liability.
“There’s a whole operation going on, which is genius,” said one of the strategists, who is unaffiliated with any campaign. “And it’s going to help them win on the second ballot … They’re telling them that’s their strategy.”

(Hat-tip: Ace of Spades.) We haven’t had a brokered convention since 1952, and I doubt there will be one this year, but never say never. And so it’s important that every Bernie Sanders supporter know this: The Democrats are trying to steal the nomination from your guy, just like they stole it from him in 2016. Even if you beat Bloomberg on Super Tuesday, the Democrat establishment still won’t stop trying to f–k you over. If you’re going to get f–ked over, well, Republicans can do that.

Republicans have catered buffets and better-looking women. So why not just come on over to the Dark Side? It’s a great party. And at least when Republicans f–k you over, they don’t call it “social justice.”